 Counting Her Blessings - After her kidney transplant, Harshana Patel went on to have the children she always dreamed of: Dipali, age 7, and Kishan, who is 6.
Today, Harshana Patel, of Union, N.J., is a proud mother of two, but there was a time when she feared kidney disease had destroyed all hopes of her ever having children.
Before she received her kidney transplant in 1993, Harshana asked her transplant physician if it would be possible for her to bear children after transplantation. Shamkant Mulgaonkar, M.D., Chief of Transplantation for the Saint Barnabas Health Care System Renal and Pancreas Transplant Centers, assured Harshana that her chances of having a family remained good.
Harshana waited the recommended two years following her transplant before becoming pregnant. Her transplanted kidney was functioning well and she felt fine. Although her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage (unrelated to her transplant), several months later Harshana was pregnant again. “We wanted a family badly, but I was worried about many things,” she recalls. “I was most nervous about the baby’s health.” Her doctors told her that her anti-rejection medications would not affect the fetus, but that did little to ease her mind.
Leon Smith, Jr., M.D., Director of the Division of Maternal Fetal
Medicine at Saint Barnabas, performed many ultrasounds over the next eight months to check the baby’s progress and assured Harshana and her husband Bilip that their fetus was developing normally. Feeling well throughout the pregnancy, Harshana worked alongside her husband at their family business until four weeks before the baby was due. At a routine visit to Dr. Smith’s office, tests revealed that Harshana’s kidney was under stress. It was time for the baby to be delivered. After a long, induced labor and a vaginal delivery, the Patels were the parents of a healthy baby girl named Dipali. After the birth, Harshana’s kidney function returned to normal, and Dipali spent a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit because she was several weeks premature. “I was so thankful to finally have her in my arms. The world felt like a beautiful place with her in it.”
Grateful for two blessings – a transplanted kidney and a healthy baby girl, Harshana and her husband weren’t planning to have any more children. They were, therefore, surprised when a year later they learned Harshana was pregnant again. “I was afraid all over again,” Harshana recalls. “Would the baby be healthy? Would my kidney survive?” Fortunately, her kidney functioned normally. In April 1997, their son, Kishan was born by Cesarean section (due to Kishan’s size – 10 lbs. at birth).
“I am thankful to God that my children are healthy, happy and bright,” says Harshana, who this year celebrates the ten-year anniversary of her kidney transplant.
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